Day: March 9, 2013

When the truck rolls up, everything seems normal enough. It’s a generic oil tanker. But when the theme from “2001: A Space Odyssey” begins to play and the side of the tank starts to open, you suddenly realize things are not what they seem. This is no mere tanker truck, it’s a massive meat cooking monster dubbed the “X Grill”.

[Ken Foster], owner and creator of this $40K+ beast, worked with welder [Gary Webb] to custom design and fabricate every component of the vehicle, from hinges to hydraulic systems. They claim not a single part came from a box. The cooking area, complete with speakers and spotlights, has storage cabinets, stainless steel prep counters, a four burner stove, and a 42 inch grill. If that’s not enough, there are three more grills you can set up beside the truck and hook into the system. All the appliances are run off a 65 gallon propane tank that’s mounted to the side of the truck.

Although the “X Grill” is available to rent for private parties, [Ken] says they spend most of their time at community and charitable events. He donates his equipment and cooking services, and the host group supplies the food and gets to keep any profit.

We would wager that most of the home etched PCB projects we see around here use the toner transfer method. But the next most popular technique is to use photosensitive ink which resists the etching acid once it has been exposed to light. Most people buy what are called pre-sensitized boards, but you can also get ink to make your own. [Jardirx] does this, and uses an old hard drive to apply an even layer of the light-sensitive ink.

The narration and subtitles of the video found after the break are both in Portuguese, but it’s not hard to figure out what’s going on here. He begins by using double-sided foam tape to secure the piece of copper clad board to the hard drive platters. You’ll want to center it as best as you can to keep the vibrations to a minimum. From there [Jardirx] applies a coating of the ink using a brush. The image above is what results. So as not to get ink everywhere, he then lowers a soda bottle with the bottom cut off to catch the excess. Power up the drive for a few seconds and the board will have a nice even layer ready for a trip through a UV exposure box.

Every year, [Nathan] hosts an Oscar party with a lot of drinking, adoring the off-color comments of [Joan Rivers] and some low stakes wagering. Everyone throws a dollar into the pot for a particular award, and when the winner is announced, [Nathan] splits the pot between the winners and begins counting out coins. As convenience stores have discovered, there’s an easier way to dole out pocket change, so this year [Nathan] created a change machine that dispenses coins for the winners.

The change machine is just like the ones you would find at a supermarket or convenience store; load up the machine with a few rolls of coins, and a few solenoids fire in response to serial data received from a computer. [Nathan] used an Arduino, Serial shield, button matrix, and LCD display for his change machine interface, allowing him to dispense pocket change to each of the winners after an award is announced.

Touch screens are nice — we still can’t live without a keyboard but they suffice when on the go. But it is becoming obvious that the end goal with user interface techniques is to completely remove the need to touch a piece of hardware in order to interact with it. One avenue for this goal is the use of voice commands via software like Siri, but another is the use of 3D processing hardware like Kinect or Leap Motion. This project uses the latter to control the image shown on the 3D display.

[Robbie Tilton] generated a 3D image using Three.js, a JavaScript 3D library. The images are made to appear as if floating in air using a pyramid of acrylic which reflects the light toward the viewer’s eyes without blocking out ambient light in the room. In the past we’ve referred to this as a volumetric display. But [Robbie] points out that this actually uses the illusion called Pepper’s Ghost. It’s not really volumetric because the depth is merely an illusion. Moving your point of view won’t change your perspective unless you go around the corner to the next piece of acrylic. But it’s still a nice effect. See for yourself in the demo after the jump.

Who has an airport carry-on X-ray machine sitting in their garage? Apparently [Mike] does, and he’s sharing the fun by posting a video teardown series that really digs into the machine’s hardware and operating system.

At this point the series includes six lengthy segments. The first episode, which you’ll find embedded after the break, starts with an external overview of the hardware. [Mike] mentions that it’s not functional at that point. He guesses that this has to do either with security settings to enable the machine (it does produce x-ray after all) or corrupt memory in an EPROM chip. The password lockout is later confirmed when he looks at a code disassembly and finds strings requesting username and password to gain access to some of the menus. The second installment involves more disassembly to figure out the passwords and gain full access to the machine. By the fourth video he’s X-raying random items from around the shop and then some.

It’s a lot to watch, but it’s exciting to see how far he gets with the rare equipment.